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I am tempted to come and watch .
Any tips from locals?
Are spectators welcome?, i do not want to be a burden to marshals/parking etc.
Park somewhere a bit away from the course and ride to a good spectating spot.
I'm number 256 so give me a shout if you see me!
Do it, it's a great atmosphere.
Park WELL AWAY from: the start / finish, Cold Cotes, Ribblehead. Don't be tempted to chuck it in a layby somewhere, the traffic wardens will be out. Personally I prefer to park in Settle then ride up the back road (Stackhouse Lane) to Helwith, it's only about 4 miles. Otherwise you'll be caught up in traffic chaos.
Unless you're going to be in a fixed spot, travelling around by bike is the way to do it. Get to Helwith, watch the start. Ride the "wrong way" via Austwick & Clapham to Cold Cotes to watch them come off Ingleborough. Ride with the race route up to Whernside and, where the race route goes left, carry straight on up the road to Ribblehead, watch it there for a bit (that'll be very busy). Ride with the race route to PyG and watch it there. If you're not bothered by all that faff, get up onto one of the slopes early on. You can watch the start of Ingleborough then have a leisurely wander over to PyG and get half way up that while the race is going over Whernside. Or you can watch the start / Ingleborough then go to Ribblehead and get as far up that track as you can before the front runners start the descent.
There'll be a mix of spectators travelling around by bike, support crews driving around (sometimes like total maniacs...) and then folk on foot. And various bunches of very confused walkers who won't have realised there are 400 idiots on unsuitable bikes riding on their footpaths that day!
As with any race - stay out the way of the people racing. Obey the marshals. Be nice, say hi. Help out if people need it.
Weather forecast looks pretty decent but the ground is still absolutely soaking after the torrential rain last weekend. Take some warm / waterproof clothes for the "hanging around on a hillside" parts, food, thermos of hot drink. And a cowbell obviously.
Also, and slightly cheekily, if you want to ride paths you normally can't, take a mountain bike and get to the summit well in advance of the race coming through. Stay up there and watch the race go through, then rip the descent. Whernside is my favourite and a mountain bike really does make the top half actually enjoyable. 😉
I'm number 256 so give me a shout if you see me!
Good luck @Spin !
Take a bike (MTB, gravel etc). Park at Clapham. See them come through at Cold Cotes. Ride into Ingleton and take lovely quiet Oddie's Lane out of Ingleton to Chapel le Dale (the main road is a hideous mix of riders, supporter cars, tourist cars). There is a bridleway option part way along - it adds a bit of time but you might meet the last stragglers starting Whernside where it pops out.
Then a few lanes and BWs to pop out and watch under Ribblehead.
Then either road to Horton with the riders (roads calmed down a bit by then). Or go a mile down the Hawes road to meet bridleway to Horton. Watch a bit on PyG.
Road to the finish. Chips and chat to people.
Road and then BW back to Clapham.
Good luck Spin.
Cheers. My first race as a vet50 and first three peaks for 7 years. I've done enough to get round and enjoy it but it won't be a PB!
I think PyG is defo a place to watch as more of it is rideable and people are ****ed by the time they get there
I remember chipps handing out jelly babies half way up when I did it , was a life saver for me!
They used to be short of marshals (not sure if they still are these days) I did that about 3 yrs in a row and was another way to do it
Unfortunately on the day support crews can be idiots , drive dangerously and think their rider is the best thing since sliced bread
Wish my body would still let me take part
Unfortunately on the day support crews can be idiots , drive dangerously and think their rider is the best thing since sliced bread
The organisers have done a lot to try and counter that - specific pit areas, can only drive one way around, no following cars etc but yes, it's still insane.
I remember riding one year, came out into the road at PyG, just the road in to the finish. Could see a rider ahead of me, all over the road, clearly blown his doors off. Next thing a car shot past me, pulled up alongside him then he got a full on tow off car. Hanging on, 30+ mph, he disappeared up the road.
Reported it at the finish but because I hadn't seen the rider's number they wouldn't do anything.
I've ridden it three times and marshalled once on Rawnsley's Leap top of Simon's Fell....
... which also involved waiting, looking over the edge of the fell watching for the riders to appear. First just two (probably Jebb and someone) emerging over the edge of the limestone escarpment onto the peaty plateau under the main slope. Then a handful then scores and hundreds of the bastards like an invading army.... Shiiiiit to the wall and
Anyway that one stuck in the mind, and you could make it to Ribble head to see them come down Whernside.
Otherwise another classic viewing point is the track up penyghent when you can watch the fast folks pulling airs on the way down as the mortals (me) try to keep the bike moving vaguely upwards. Always good to get a cheer from Ilkley CC corner.
(A friend describing his rapid round told me that's where he hit the wall. "What - did you bonk? Get cramp?" I asked. "No. It was on the way down. I hit the wall .. .)
Fifth time for me which is pretty mad considering I wouldn’t normally be found on a CX bike. I'd like to see a self supported category and try to move away from the following support crews, the numbers driving is something that puts the event at risk.
Here's my wifes bike route that takes in a lot of key points, she starts at Helwith Bridge but if you are not with a competitor park in Horton in Ribblehead, use a proper car park or you will get a ticket and get there early as road will close after 9am.
Ride toward Selside to where the Pennine bridleway crosses the road, follow the farm track to the left, the riders actually turn off the bridleway and head towards the farm house then up towards Simons Fell though a field. This is not on footpaths but there's usually photographers and other spectators hanging around because this is where you get the classic view of the snake of riders trudging up the hill.
Then ride through Selside to Ribblehead then on bridleways to Brutscar farm, you'll now see riders going up Whernside, then ride back to Ribblehead to see them come down again. After that head back to Horton and go up Pen-y-ghent Lane as far as you can be bothered to watch riders going both up and down. I wouldn't bother going to the finish at Helwith, all you'll see there is a bunch of exhausted riders with cramp.
Lots of folk do the classic Cold Cotes spectator loop which is good but it is lots of road and you end up behind the race, with the above route you are a bit more in front.
If you are on foot only I'd probably park at Ribblehead and walk 2 miles to Bruntscar farm to watch them go up Whernside, then back to see them come down.
I'll be breaking out my only 3 peaks joke to other competitors as we trudge up Whernside "I'm told that from up here, on a clear day, you can see Rob Jebb at the finish with his feet up".
And various bunches of very confused walkers who won't have realised there are 400 idiots on unsuitable bikes riding on their footpaths that day!
I remember a family walking up Whernside, the grown-up daughter telling the mother to move to one side away from the racers carrying their bikes slowly up the gradient, and the mother loudly and indignantly proclaiming her right to be there. Nobody was all that held up because everyone was carrying a bike at snails pace.
I'll be breaking out my only 3 peaks joke to other competitors as we trudge up Whernside "I'm told that from up here, on a clear day, you can see Rob Jebb at the finish with his feet up".
Turning up the lane at Horton and Jebb et al were just about to hit the final road stretch and the bloke with me said 'thank god, it can't be long now if those are the leaders'. He was very deflated when I said that we were an hour behind them at least.
Wish my body would still let me take part
I got to 10 finishes (11 starts) and called it a day. Rather annoyingly, on my 10th start, I DNF'd (a whole range of mechanical issues and basically an unrideable bike by the bottom of Ribblehead) which meant I had to go back the next year and try again. Double figures is enough. By the time of about my 6th / 7th go, I realised that it didn't matter how much training I'd done, how many recces of descents, how much I'd optimised the bike. It was SO dependent on weather and other riders that unless you were right up in the front 10% or so of the field getting into the first bit of off-road at Selside, you were never going to claw that time back.
The only thing about training was it definitely made everything a lot less painful! The 50th anniversary year was a proper wet one. Biblical. I marshalled it a couple of times as well including one quite damp and windy one where I was very glad to be stood at a gate, not riding!
It's a great event though, really gets into your soul. It's utterly insane but kind of charming too. Proper old-school, the sort of thing that if someone came along now and said "I've got this great idea for a bike race..." they'd be laughed out of the building, refused insurance, told it's just not possible. And yet it is!
I got to 10 finishes (11 starts) and called it a day. Rather annoyingly, on my 10th start, I DNF'd (a whole range of mechanical issues and basically an unrideable bike by the bottom of Ribblehead) which meant I had to go back the next year and try again.
I did it three, maybe four times, and was up there as team support a few more times. There wasn't once when I didn't have a mechanical, or two, or three, including double puncturing near the bottom of PyG when I was on for a sub four hour. (I never quite managed that - times were were from 4.05 to about 4.35.) I'd hope that modern bikes might be more robust, but think I'd be disabused of that as soon as I got to Ingleborough! 🤣 Although, tubeless would help, I think.
Just park blocking the road at Ribblehead, everyone else will 🙄
+1 for parking a long way away and riding over. e.g. Hawes and then follow the Cam Road over Weather Fell is a decent ride.
That was a nice day out. Early mist gave way to stunning sunshine, the trails were mostly dry apart from the usual wheel trapper bogs on the Ingleborough descent!
I watched the start then joined the chaotic sprint around to Cold Cotes and watched the leaders come through. Then went into Ingleton and picked up the back lane then some gravel tracks which bring you out at the foot Whernside then on to Ribblehead.
Then abandoned the race route altogether and went up Cam High Road then the lovely gravel track down to Horton. Watched at the foot of PyG for a bit, long enough to cheer on some of the folk I knew, then back to the finish, then a roll off the hills into Settle for coffee!
Many years ago when I photographed it before it was cool, I rode to the bottom of Simon's Fell. left my bike at the bottom behind the wall, hiked up. The view is FANTASTIC.
Edit - finally, pic addition worked!
Lachlan Morton, Ingleborough.
Not mine - a friend got up to the summit early on, we met up briefly in Ribblehead after she'd walked back down the hill once the leaders had been through. She gave me permission to post it here.
Great pic.
We did pretty much the same thing as crazy-legs but from Clapham. If you did the bw all the way down to New Inn then it is a bit more bouldery than a "gravel track" in places 🙂.
Bit murky in Cold Cotes but looks like it was amazing up above.
Mrs can't race it anymore - usually not super keen on just spectating, but the weather, views and meeting loads of old friends made it a great day.
Bit murky in Cold Cotes but looks like it was amazing up above.
Yep, still really misty at Cold Cotes. My fell runner friend up on the summit (see pic above) was sending me incredible shots of blue sky; meanwhile down at CC, we could barely see a thing for the first 20 minutes of waiting! 🤣
Overall I think that's one of the best weather days I've seen at the Three Peaks. No wind (the wind is the absolute bastard that kills any thoughts of fast times), pretty dry and once the mist had cleared, a glorious sunny day.
Despite a recent bout of Covid and losing 4 out of 5 chainring bolts on PYG descent I still managed to finish albeit my slowest time to date. Even managed to get a few photos from a racers viewpoint.
My slowest out of 5 but actually quite happy given lack of specific training (or much training all together) and a puncture on Ingleborough. I was moving steadily back up the field after the puncture which was nice.
It is quite simply the best bike race in the world.
Well done, riders and great pics as well.
what a lovely day it was for spectating after that overnight rain.
I was all set to leave campsite ,then the van packed up in Hawes at 7am as i was setting off.
I was rescued but missed it all.
Thanks for the tips.
Will return again.
Top tip, check your breakdown recovery service is up to date with membership! Ended it up an expensive wèekend!